


On a Distant Star

by antioedipus



Category: Naruto
Genre: Aoba fucks off for a year and regrets it, Gen, Growing Up, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Soulmates, Recreational Drug Use, References and conversations about books and movies with sexual violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29078097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antioedipus/pseuds/antioedipus
Summary: After his uncle dies, Aoba leaves Konoha to figure some things out. This is the story of the year Aoba and Anko spent apart.“What’s true love when you’ve got a soulmate, Anko?” he asks. She has no response for that one, so she steps back into her room, and he climbs into her window."
Relationships: Mitarashi Anko & Yamashiro Aoba
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	On a Distant Star

“Come to find out/ I’m a can on a string, you’re on the end”

Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, “Would You Rather”

Aoba sits on Anko’s bed, his right foot on her lap, watching her paint his toenails hot pink. The exact color is ‘Hot Sex,’ the name alone making Anko think it too pervy and funny to not wear to a funeral. She painted her own toenails last night, and persuaded Aoba do it when he came over this morning to get her for his uncle’s funeral.

His uncle had died on a mission, like most deaths around here, and while Aoba isn’t particularly attached to anyone but Anko, he did love with his uncle. This was the man who taught him how to ride a bike and showed him how to put his head under water. It’s surreal, to live in a world where his uncle is dead. Unbelievable, even.

“You have such nice toenails,” Anko hums. He is so used to her that her touch doesn’t even tickle anymore.

“It’s because I keep them trimmed.” Aoba sits back on his hands. Anko is sticking her tongue out, trying to concentrate on his toes. “If I die, would you wear bright nail polish to my funeral?” She looks up at him, frowning.

“Why would you be dying?” she asks. Aoba shrugs.

“If the universe commands it, I suppose.” No one plans on dying. It just happens, and in the last few seconds of your life, you realize the ultimate lesson: there is no choice but to roll with the universe’s punches.

“I think I’d wear a really provocative color. Maybe I’d get shiny, cherry red acrylics and have my toes match.”

“You’d be my young, hot widow?” he asks. They’re just friends and he is never getting married, but he would like to have a widow figure there.

“Well, hopefully we won’t be young,” she says, “and you have to do the same if I die first.”

“Deal,” he says, checking his watch. “We have half an hour.” Anko smiles at him.

“I only need another ten, just for it to dry,” she says. “I also promise to make sure you have nice nails before you’re buried.” Aoba smiles.

“I’m partial to bright pink,” he says, wiggling his toes. Anko giggles, which puts a smile on his face, like, maybe things aren’t so bad after all.

He doesn’t give a shit, so he wears his sandals like he’s supposed to, and no one says anything about his and Anko’s matching pedicures. His father raises his eyebrows, but that’s it, in terms of reactions. Soon his uncle is in the ground, and Aoba can do nothing but place flowers on the grave and wonder why the universe did this, before remembering that there is no real reason, for any of it.

**

 _Nolite te bastardes carborundorum_. Do not let the bastards grind you down. Aoba’s mother says this a lot, even though all she has done is watch ‘the bastards’ slowly grind Aoba and his friends down into pulpy mush. He lies down on his childhood bed, a twin, with Anko pressed up beside him. Her head is pressed into his armpit and one of his legs is between hers. They are both staring up at the ceiling.

She stood beside him at the funeral. He hasn’t really said anything since asking if she would spend time with him after. He’s not usually so quiet. She presses the side of her face to his side, and she can hear his heart _thump-thump-thump_. She sighs loudly.

“I hate you,” she says, unprovoked.

“That’s not true,” he replies.

“Oh, but it is,” she says, “you are the kind of douchebag who wears sunglasses all the time, even inside.” Aoba frowns and sits up, looking down at her. He takes off his sunglasses.

“Are you happy now?” he asks. He looks genuinely annoyed, and she knows it’s because of his uncle. His face doesn’t look right, without his sunglasses. He’s cute, with dark eyes, and when they are visible, one can see how sensitive he is. He has very expressive eyes, something he doesn’t like people to know _. I don’t want people to see inside me_. For someone who reads minds, he is very private. On the other hand, maybe it’s not actually a big surprise that Aoba values his privacy, given the whole mind reading thing.

Anko takes his sunglasses into her hands and puts them back on his face. He still frowns, but he lies back down.

“You aren’t yourself,” she says quietly. Aoba looks up at the ceiling.

“Death changes things.” He loved his uncle, and despite the fact that Aoba is currently living it, it is impossible to think of a world without his uncle. It occurs to him that this will happen to him or one of his friends, eventually. Someone will be killed in the line of duty and they’ll all have to go to the funeral and act like, while it’s unpleasant, dying on the job is normal.

Aoba wants out; he wants more for himself than to watch his friends die. He wants to take drugs because they’re fun, not because they make him feel what he thinks a normal, untraumatized person would feel like. He doesn’t want to do this shit anymore. He’s over it. He came, he saw, he bought the t-shirt; he’s ready to get off of this ride.

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he says quietly.

“What?” Anko asks, sitting up to look at him.

“I don’t want to be a ninja anymore,” he says in a louder voice, “I want to be normal.”

“Aoba, you can read minds and summon crows, among other things. You’re never going to be normal.” Anko moves to straddle him, sitting on his stomach like it’s enough to keep him down forever. He doesn’t even care that he can see up her skirt. He looks into her eyes and sighs.

“I want to try,” he says, “I’m tired of doing a job for people who don’t give a shit about us, Anko.”

“They care,” Anko says, “Asuma’s dad cares about us.” Aoba snorts.

“If we weren’t of use, he would forget about us.” Aoba’s convinced that it’s just the way people are. If you aren’t around, eventually, everyone will forget, and it will be like you never existed. Anko decides not to challenge him.

“What will you do instead?” she asks. She knows that him quitting will take him away from her. They won’t be on the same wavelength, anymore.

“Dunno. Fuck around,” he replies, putting his hands on her legs. She doesn’t say anything for a second, looking at him with concern as he traces circles on her thighs. He is wilted, and she wants to make him feel better. He has not yet directly spoken about his uncle. She places her hands over his, to stop the circles that are making her shiver a little.

“Let me take care of you,” she says softly. Aoba’s mouth twitches.

“That is something I truly fear,” he replies. Anko frowns.

“Talk to me,” she says, “tell me what you’re feeling.” Aoba snatches his hands away and crosses his arms. His brow furrows, making him look several years older than nineteen.

“I would prefer not to,” he says. Anko snorts.

“You look like an old man,” she sighs. “Here, I’ll start. Want to hear about my bad dream?”

“The one with the bear and the palm tree?” he asks, his face relaxing.

“No, a new one. I just had it last night.” Anko shifts her weight, and Aoba doesn’t even make a face as she gets comfortable.

“Feed it to me,” he says, speaking their little language. “Put your bad dream in my mouth.”

“This one is about being trapped in the digestive tract of a snail,” she says. Aoba smiles.

“Quelle horreur,” he replies.

“Imagine, being turned into snail goo and being conscious of the experience,” she says.

“Zut alors,” Aoba says, “so, did you begin in their mouth?”

“Do snails have mouths?” she asks. Aoba shrugs.

“Your bad dream, not mine.”

“I definitely came to in its guts.” She laughs at the grossed out face Aoba makes.

**

Aoba has no idea what, exactly, his mother saw in his father. His father had been on a mission in Tokyo, where his mother was visiting his aunt. The story goes that his father spent all his free time with his mother, an art dealer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, born to a Japanese expatriate who followed his American girlfriend back to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. His mother was living in France at the time, and she was visiting her sister, Aoba’s aunt, to help her with her new baby, Aoba’s cousin. His father was so smitten that when he returned to Konoha, he went on leave and followed his mother to France, then, some months later, returned with her.

Out of all of his friends, Aoba is the only one whose mother has always been a civilian. Genma’s mother become a stay-at-home mom, but that’s about it. His mother is still an art dealer, too. She never wears a bra and only wears monochrome outfits, all her pants high-waisted and her jewelry either fine or obnoxious. She wears cherry earrings that looked like the stem itself goes through her ear. Aoba was fourteen when he walked in on his parents smoking pot; they just blinked at him and kept talking. They don’t care about his drug use or premarital sex because, well, they’d rather he be a dumb kid under their roof than on the street and they want him to feel comfortable coming to them for help. All of his friends are jealous—Genma once said that Aoba got the ‘cool’ parents, while the rest of them were stuck with hopeless losers. 

His mother travels for work and would take Aoba with her when it was permitted. She is the reason he knows English, German, French and Chinese, in addition to Japanese. She refused to have a son who couldn’t read the Marquis de Sade and Georges Bataille in their original French, nor a son who couldn’t read William Shakespeare or Franz Kafka. _Art is what separates us from the animals_. Aoba had once pointed out that everyone else had mothers who taught them cool jutsu or sparred with them. His mother looked right at him and told him that he would be grateful when he was older and able to have something other than his trauma to talk about. It was the one time she had ever really snapped at him.

Aoba’s father didn’t say anything, which he always thought meant that his old man was whipped but, the older Aoba gets, the more he thinks that his father wants something different for him. Aoba always thought his father to be a clueless asshole who had a kid because it was expected of him, but he thinks that maybe, his father wanted him to have options.

Aoba sits on the plane, reading his mother’s beat-up copy of the Marquis de Sade’s _The 120 Days of Sodom_ , which was the first book she bought in France, when she moved abroad. He told his parents that he didn’t want to be a ninja anymore, and his mother made a few calls, and the next thing he knew, they were dropping him off at the airport with a ticket to Los Angeles, California to stay with his mother’s art dealer friend. It’s weird that his mom gave him this particular book, but it was the first book she bought abroad, so she wanted him, very much, to have it.

The woman sitting next to him gave him a mini-Kit Kat and turned his light on so he could read during the flight, and when they landed, she gave him a cough drop for his throat. She was travelling with her doctor husband for a class reunion at UCLA. She asked Aoba what he was doing in California. He replied that he was planning to figure that out, and she smiled and told him to meet a nice girl, someone who will remember to bring cough drops for him on flights.

 _I’ll try_. The thing is, is that he never really wanted a girlfriend. They happened, yes, but they weren’t a priority for him. The hot pink nail polish burns on his toes, as he thinks about how he just left Anko. Out of the two of them, he is most definitely the one who would remember the bring cough drops on a flight.

Anko had been on a mission, which is no excuse, but it was just easier to leave with no goodbye. Asuma and Shizune never say goodbye, but, on the other hand, they don’t have Anko to look after, nor are they her little lion cub. There are approximately 500, 000 words in the Japanese language, but there is no satisfactory combination, that Aoba could come up with, that would adequately explain why he had to go.

So, he just did.

**

Anko woke up in a strange mood today. Her stomach keeps flipping around in her body, like it can’t find a comfortable position to rest in. She calls it a ‘flippy tummy’ and only Aoba knows what that means. All she has to do is say those words, and he immediately knows that something is going to happen. She had a flippy tummy before the third war, Obito and Rin’s respective deaths, the Nine-Tails attack, and when they walked in on his parents fooling around in the living room. Anko immediately put her hands over his eyes, and as they stumbled out of his house, he told her that he would never ignore a flippy tummy again.

She decides to go find Aoba and have him spend the day with her. If today is going to be a flippy tummy day, she doesn’t want anyone else by her side. She walks up to his parents’ house and knocks loudly. She smiles when his mother opens the front door.

“Hi Anko,” she says, “how are you today?”

“I’m fine,” Anko replies. “Is Aoba here?” She tucks her hands behind her back, the way she did when she was a little kid.

“Aoba didn’t tell you?” his mother tilts her head. “He left.”

“Left?” Anko asks, “like, on a mission? When will he back?” She looks up at the older woman, who has Aoba’s expressive, doe eyes. Or, he has her eyes.

“No,” she replies, “he left for America. He’s going away for a while. I don’t know when he’ll be back.” Anko feels her face go stiff, and her tummy go from flippy to floppy.

“What?”

“He really didn’t tell you?” his mother sighs. “He doesn’t want to be a ninja anymore.”

“He talked about that,” Anko says in a quiet voice. “But…he never said he was leaving.”

“Do you want to come in?” Aoba’s mom smiles softly, but Anko shakes her head.

“No, I should get going.” She hugs herself and turns away, not looking up from the ground. It’s like she feels empty, but there is also a buzzing right behind her eyes, like there are a bunch of bees right in her brain, buzzing and buzzing.

Asuma and Genma are the first people she runs into. Asuma smiles as he lights a cigarette and Genma waves her over. She would have looked for them next, if Aoba were still in town. Her stomach flops inside of her, and she stands, frozen, as Genma and Asuma tilt their heads, waving at her, calling her over, and she’s somehow right there but also very, very far away.

**

Is it possible for a person to jump the shark? Because Aoba feels like that’s what he has done, living in L.A. Like he is a cartoon of himself. Ludicrous. Lampooned. Comic. Reading _The Communist Manifesto_ on Venice Beach, where houses cost millions of dollars and look like pastel candies yet there are half-naked hippies smoking pot on the beach alongside buskers and tourist shops all along the boardwalk.

Aoba met a guy named Aron on the beach, a few years older than him, who is planning on driving all over the continent with a few of his friends. They smoked pot and talked for a few hours, after which, Aoba was invited on the cross-continent tour to nowhere. Aoba didn’t even think before he accepted. He now has a fake ID that he’s twenty-one and from Michigan in his pocket, and he only brought a ruck sack from Konoha. His mom’s friend helped him get a cellphone here, and this friend, Aoba’s parents and Genma and Asuma are the only ones with his number. Aoba has Anko’s, since he memorized hers when they were thirteen, but he doesn’t have the courage to call her. _I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry_. He hopes she knows this, wherever she is.

Aoba puts the book down and pulls out his phone. He dials Genma’s number and smiles when he hears the phone pick up. “Hey.”

“What the fuck do you want?” Genma squawks, “I’m trying to sleep.”

“I just called to discuss material conditions,” Aoba grins, “did you know that Asuma and Kakashi are lowly proles, just like us?”

“Proles?” Genma sighs.

“The exploited working class, whose overlords benefit from exploiting our labor,” Aoba replies, “it’s why we’re all fucked up and alienated.” Funnily enough, Anbu is the only unionized workforce in Konoha—Root being the sole exception. It’s even funnier that the higher ups act like it is a big secret. Kakashi once said that hazard pay was why he accepted his recruitment in the first place.

“Here I was, thinking it was all the murder and violence,” Genma says, sleepily.

“Working men of all countries, unite!” Aoba pumps his fist in the air and grins when a leathery looking hippie copies him.

“Why are you calling me at 3 a.m.?” Genma decides to sidestep the whole workers’ rights thing.

“I missed your voice,” Aoba replies.

“That only works on Anko,” Genma yawns, “maybe Asuma. He’s a sucker for flattery.”

“I’m going on a road trip,” Aoba says, “I’m going to see America, probably the interesting bits of Canada.” Although, Aoba sort of doubts that there is anything interesting about Canada.

“And I needed to know this at 3 a.m.?”

“Don’t you want to know where your dearest pal Aoba is on his journey to enlightenment and self-actualization?” Genma hangs up the phone halfway through the question, leaving Aoba with a bad taste in his mouth.

**

There is a very good reason that, out of all his friends, Aoba only calls Genma and Asuma. Firstly, Hayate, at the tender age of fourteen, is too young for Aoba to call. Guy is way too excitable and would probably talk too fast for Aoba to say anything. No one just calls Kakashi or Ibiki; you have to set up an appointment prior and Aoba has no time for that, plus, he can never predict whether or not he’s in a place with good cell service. Raidou is a grouch. Kurenai and Shizune aren’t really his friends, and the same goes for Yuugao and Tenzou, who are also way too young. Ebisu is the most stuck up person Aoba knows, and he has no idea how Ebisu ended up on a team with Genma and Guy, the least pretentious people Aoba has ever met.

Genma and Asuma are different, in the sense that they both trust Aoba to have a reason, even if it’s a stupid one, for leaving. Asuma is like a mildly negligent sitcom dad and Genma is laidback. They aren’t judgmental and they are impossible for Aoba to disappoint.

Aoba zips up his pants and looks at the big, grassy field ahead of him. He left the guys at a diner to go get gas, and he pulled over to take a piss. He sighs and pulls out his phone. It rings once, twice, before Asuma picks up.

“At least you’re calling at a respectable hour,” Asuma says, “guess who I’m with?”

“Hm, no clue.” Aoba replies, kicking a pebble into a ditch.

“At least guess.” Asuma replies. Aoba hears someone talking in the background, but he can’t make out the voice.

“Dunno, the Third?” he asks. He can practically hear Asuma’s frown over the phone.

“No,” Asuma says, “I’m with Genma. I’m going to put you on speaker.”

“Where are you two?”

“My parents’ house,” Genma says, “Asuma’s staying here while he’s in town.”

“You can always stay in my room,” Aoba says, “my parents like you.”

“But Genma’s mom makes the best pancakes,” Asuma says. Aoba sighs.

“This is true.”

“So,” Genma says, “where are you?”

“Getting my kicks on Route 66, just outside the—” Aoba walks over the other side of the green van, “something called ‘General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn,’ in Bristow, Oklahoma, USA.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Genma says, his mouth full.

“It’s a church, I think,” Aoba says, “I just stopped to take a whizz on the side of the road and figured I should call and let one of you know I’m alive. This two for one deal is convenient.”

“What’s Route 66?”

“An old highway. It got broken up awhile ago.” Aoba chews on the inside of his cheek. “How is everyone?”

“The same,” Asuma says too quickly. Aoba narrows his eyes.

“Really?” he asks. “How’s Anko?”

“She’s been seeing someone.” Asuma says, “they seem to be doing fine.”

“Does she seem happy?” Aoba asks. He hopes she is.

“Well…” Asuma trails off.

“She seems to like the guy sixty percent of the time,” Genma says, “but she seems bored, more often than not.”

“Yeah,” Asuma says, “but she’s making a go of it.”

“What’s he like?” Aoba asks, suspecting he won’t like the answer.

“Old, plays in a band, kinda ugly,” Genma says, “you wouldn’t like him.” Aoba frowns, digesting this information.

“He really likes her, though,” Asuma adds, “he wants to eat out of her hands.” Anko always fed Aoba with her hands; he’s never had to earn the privilege. All he did was open his mouth, and she’d stick a grape or a chip or an almond in there. It’s been like that since they were kids.

“She’s a cool chick,” Aoba says, “the coolest, really.” He gets back in the van and turns on the ignition. “She’d hate Oklahoma.” But she’d love driving all over a continent with Aoba.

“Yeah, she’s pretty special,” Asuma says.

“I got to go,” Aoba says, “I’ll call one of you later.”

“Aye-aye captain,” Genma says before they hang up first. Aoba sits back and looks at the road ahead of him, before fiddling with the radio. He plays with it, sighing when the only stations that come through without static are Christian stations warning of the inevitable apocalypse and the eternal love of God and salvation and fire and brimstone and well…something else that ties them all together, but Aoba turns the radio off without bothering to catch the rest of the broadcast.

**

Asuma and Genma lied about Anko, since they didn’t want to worry Aoba and Anko is probably the toughest person they know, next to Kakashi. Toughest as in no one can picture Anko ever being killed. She is going to die of old age, probably terrorizing her juniors and dancing all over their graves.

She’s been dating an older guy; he’s forty to her nineteen. He plays in a band and writes songs about her. Asuma and Genma even heard him call Anko his soulmate, and they watched disgust flicker over her face before it returned to indifference.

Asuma is smoking outside of the bar, and when the door opens, he turns to see Anko there, smiling.

“Hi,” she says, “may I have a smoke?” Asuma pulls a cigarette out, passing it to her along with his lighter.

“Since when do you smoke?” he asks.

“Since when do you ask questions?” she replies, sticking the cigarette in her mouth, covering the end with her hand as she lights it, pulling in a lungful of hot smoke. Asuma holds his hand out for his lighter, frowning.

“You have such an attitude,” he says, tucking it into his pocket. He’s cleanshaven, because he just had dinner with his family. Anko isn’t interested, but she’s noticed that his time away has changed him. He has a nicer jawline, broader shoulders.

“You should be inside, talking to girls,” Anko says, exhaling.

“I’m talking to you,” he smirks.

“I don’t count,” she says, “I’m spoken for.”

“If you were spoken for, you’d be inside watching that guy sing about you,” Asuma takes another drag of his cigarette. “Or, at least, that’s testosterone logic.”

“Testosterone logic?” she asks, smirking. Asuma nods sagely, like he is about to disclose one of the greatest secrets of the universe.

“Testosterone logic refers to the way that testosterone influences the way you think,” Asuma says, “even if a guy says he doesn’t think with his dick or that testosterone doesn’t influence his behavior, that’s just his own vanity.”

“But what of the possibility of agency?” she asks, puffing on her cigarette.

“You can only have real agency if you acknowledge that your dick does a lot of thinking for you,” Asuma says.

“And your dick tells you that I’m out here because I’m not spoken for?” Anko smiles with all of her teeth. “Asuma, I didn’t know you felt that way about me.” He rolls his eyes.

“What else am I supposed to think when you avoid the guy who calls you his soulmate?” Asuma replies. “I bet you fake it every time, too.”

Anko’s mouth hangs open, because Asuma has never been that mouthy with her. It’s the most Aoba-like thing he has ever said, but he doesn’t deliver it like a punchline. Rather, he seems disappointed in her, like he wants more for her.

“That’s really rude,” she says. It’s her way of admitting that he’s right.

“Aoba would’ve said worse,” Asuma replies, “he’d say that tattoos aren’t a personality and that writing songs about a girl who doesn’t like you is peak desperation.” Anko frowns. _If you have to try this hard, it’s not working_.

“He wouldn’t say something that obvious,” she says quietly, “when Aoba doesn’t like someone, he pretends they don’t exist.” Asuma nods. “Do you think he’ll come back?” she asks in a small voice.

“I don’t know,” Asuma says, “I wish I did, but I don’t.” Anko puffs her cigarette as he goes back into the bar.

**

Aoba is walking around a souvenir shop in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s cloudy and a little cold. He found two dirty postcards to send to Genma and Asuma. All he ever writes is that he’s still alive and will call when he feels like it. Genma lives with his parents and Asuma works at a temple, so Aoba will actually send them both in an envelope to Genma, who will send Asuma’s to him in a scroll. Aoba also found a tasteful postcard for his parents, one with a nice picture of downtown Omaha. Aoba fans himself with the postcards, looking around the shop.

He tries to write Anko letters, but there are no words. He doesn’t want to call her, because he knows he would probably start crying like a baby. He looks at a shelf of ceramic bells, with different scenes painted on them with “Omaha, Nebraska” printed below. He has seen these bells everywhere. They range in size, but are usually white, and aren’t really meant to be rung so much as they should be put on a shelf. He picks one up, and flicks his wrist, listening to the little tinkle.

Aoba smiles. He’s just found his solution to talking to Anko.

**

About two months after Aoba left, Anko received a mysterious package in the mail, with a return address in Los Angeles. It was a small rectangle, wrapped in brown paper, and she immediately recognized Aoba’s neat handwriting. She sat on her bed and opened the box, and saw, nestled in crumpled newspaper, five ceramic bells. One from Omaha, with a big tractor on it. Des Moines, with a farm scene. Springfield features a scene with a lake and a sticker of Homer Simpson stuck to the other side. St. Louis has the famous bridge, and Louisville features its flag.

There is no note. This bothered Anko, but she was very happy to have received a sign that, not only does Aoba live, but he is also thinking of her. She set the bells on the windowsill, adjusting them just so, before going to let her boyfriend in. He asked about the bells, and she told him that they are from her best friend.

Another month goes by, and she received another package. Richmond, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Hartford, Boston, Baltimore. She sets these bells on a bookshelf in her living room. Her boyfriend asked, once again, just who is Aoba? Anko smiled to herself and said nothing. She doesn’t care what he thinks; hasn’t since he called her his soulmate and wrote a cringey song about her curse mark, like it’s an edgy tattoo and not a source of deep shame. Aoba would hate him so much, that he would ignore him as if he’d never been born. Sometimes, when her boyfriend is inside of her, she fantasizes that too.

When the third box of bells came in, he asked her if she’s in love with Aoba. She blinked, and then laughed. _He’s my soulmate_ , she said. Her boyfriend didn’t like that, and he especially didn’t like the noise she made when he declared that she is his soulmate. He took her by her shoulders, and tried to look deep into her eyes, but she was laughing so hard that her eyes were nearly glued shut by her tears. She only laughed harder when he threatened to break up with her, straight up cackled when he actually broke up with her, and she ended up on the floor, kicking out her legs when he left her apartment.

There are a few bells from Canada, this time: Montreal, Kingston, Belleville, Toronto, London, Detroit, Chicago, Peoria. She lines them up on her table, tallest to smallest. She doesn’t think she’ll ever get a bell from L.A., since that’s where his mom’s friend is, or New York City, because it’s the kind of place he’d avoid. _Any asshole can go to New York City_. But only Aoba would drive across a whole continent and send her bells from all the second-rate cities.

**

Aoba misses Anko like a phantom limb. He would joke that she sprung from his rib, that some higher being realized how terrible his options were and made him his best friend. He told the guys this when they were all high, and they all sat back and said _whoa_ as a collective. Aoba is the kind of person who is unintentionally deep. Most people write him off as an asshole for wearing sunglasses all the time and being a little full of himself, but he is one of the wisest of his peers. Aoba thinks it’s romantic to love someone so much that you believe that they sprung out of you. _Does that mean she is a piece of you that you’ll never get back?_ Aoba shrugged at Kakashi’s question. _I guess_.

None of their friends have ever felt the way that Aoba feels about Anko, not romantically and certainly not platonically. Not even Raidou feels that way about Kurenai, and he loves her in a big, cosmic way that makes entire universes possible. All of their other friends have all of their ribs and would like to keep it that way, _please and thank you_.

Aoba loves Anko in a way that makes him think that he has felt this way for her since the beginning of time. She loves him just as much. The beauty of their friendship lies in their soul deep platonic love for each other. It’s there when Anko sends him a picture of her recurring lip pimple, which comes back every four periods. He keeps these facts, and others, deep in his heart, locked away and taken out on nights like this, when he’s lying on his side, far from home and missing her.

**

The world is darker, without Aoba. Fucked up things happen, but there is no way to laugh at it, anymore. It’s like he took her real laugh with him. All her laughter sounds hollow, even to her. Kurenai asked her if she wants to talk about it, but Anko said no. There are no words that adequately describe what it’s like not having Aoba around.

She is sitting on a bench, tearing a piece of bread into pieces, and throwing them to the ground for the crows. Anko has never been one for introspection, which doesn’t mean that she is incapable of it. Rather, she prefers to avoid it all together. That’s what made hanging out with Aoba so great: he can acknowledge that bad shit happens, and he doesn’t make her talk about it. He only tells her to feed him her bad dreams, and that’s as far as it goes.

Anko rolls the bread between her thumb and forefinger, into a perfect, tiny ball, throwing it into the air and watching a crow gobble it up. She used to say that she would carry Aoba in a pouch, like she’s a kangaroo and he is her joey. He would stare at her and grin when she’d say that, like she was the only person in the room. One time, Shizune told her that Anko was basically saying that she would carry Aoba in her womb or on her nipple or whatever the fuck a kangaroo pouch would be on a person. _Hey, Aoba_ , Anko had said, _do you want to live in my womb or on my nipple?_ He scratched his chin and looked up, thinking. _Womb or nipple. Womb or nipple. Womb or nipple_. Finally, he grinned and clasped his hands together. It was womb, hands down. _I’d never have to see any of these uggos again!_ He gestured at their other friends, and Anko nodded in approval. _That’s settled it—I would happily carry Aoba in my womb_. Asuma said that they belong in a cage and Anko retorted that he was just jealous that no one loved him like that.

Anko throws all the bread on the ground, giving up on rolling it into little balls. She just wants Aoba to come back from wherever he is and sit beside her, where he belongs.

**

Aoba sits in the front passenger seat, looking out the window, smoking a joint. All the windows are open, because it’s hot and there is no air conditioning; the breeze makes the heat tolerable. He passes the joint to the backseat, and exhales, watching the smoke dissipate into nothing.

The last time Asuma was back home they, and by ‘they’ he means Kakashi, Asuma, Raidou, Guy, Genma and himself, all got really, really stoned. Asuma and the Third had a big fight about him not understanding whoever the fuck they are supposed to be ‘protecting’ when they are out traumatizing themselves for the village, so Asuma rounded them all up and declared that they were all going to get truly, stupidly, a-lobotomy-would-leave-you-with-better-brain-function high. No one could think of anything better to do, so they each ripped a bong a few times and didn’t acknowledge their feelings.

Now, between them, Asuma and Raidou have five braincells and the capacity for three feelings, total. The reason this is important for this particular recollection is that they made plans with Kurenai, but forgot, since Asuma was pissed at his dad and Raidou had just come back from a hit and well, neither of them felt like paying attention to Kurenai, so they forgot to meet her. She somehow found out they were all at Aoba’s parents’ place, and she didn’t even knock before stomping into the house, kicking off her shoes and marching right into the living room, where Asuma and Raidou had become one with the couch. Her hair was up in a ponytail and she was wearing a nice dress having, as it later came out, spent the morning listening to her dead mother’s best friend warn her off of dating Raidou or any shinobi, for that matter.

The backs of Kurenai’s legs were still red from the pattern of the chair she had been sitting on, and she ignored Genma’s comment about being able to see up her skirt, when she towered over Raidou and Asuma and asked them if they really want to spend their lives, quote unquote, ‘ _high and stupid.’_ Asuma and Raidou blinked at her, before giggling, and then laughing, and then cackling, which no one knew either of them to be capable of, because, well, who the fuck wouldn’t want to be high and stupid considering all the shit they have to do?

Asuma replied _I would really love to be high and stupid all the time_ , to which Raidou added _that’s the whole point of smoking pot._ They both found that enormously funny, which was a surprise, since the two of them are such uptight individuals most of the time. Genma scoffed loudly, but everyone else was silent as they watched Kurenai clench her fists.

She never once acknowledged anyone else in the room. She told Asuma and Raidou that she hated them both, before walking back to the door, picking up her shoes and leaving. Raidou sighed and got up, telling Asuma to stay here and hide from his dad and responsibilities a little longer. Asuma ended up spending the night on the couch. The next day, Aoba’s mom had made them both breakfast and his dad asked Asuma if he was happy. Asuma put some egg in his mouth and chewed for a long minute. _I’m doing my duty_ , he finally said. Aoba and his parents all eyed each other, trying to figure out who would speak first. _You’re only eighteen, Asuma_ , his mother finally said. _That’s just what it’s like here_ , his father replied when Asuma said nothing. Aoba’s mother frowned and said that she had to go make a call.

Aoba’s dad looked back at Asuma. _For what it’s worth_ , he said, _I’m proud of you_. Asuma’s mouth twisted. _Someone has to be_. They finished their meal in silence, and then Asuma left, deciding to go back to the temple. Later, Aoba and Anko caught Raidou and Kurenai sucking face in a park, and just like that, the world had returned to its axis.

Aoba looks out the window at the flat, yellow plains that aren’t even close to golden, and thinks it’s pretty fucked up how much better it feels to be high than sober in Konoha.

**

One of the many things that Anko misses about Aoba is his willingness to watch disturbing shit with her. His mom raised him to be ‘cultured’ which, apparently, means being down to consume gross, scary, and/or erotic cultural products and see them as having artistic merit. This is convenient for Anko, because one of the ways she manages her trauma is by purposefully triggering herself, because it gives her control over the things that haunt her nightmares.

She assumed that Kakashi, who is also deeply traumatized, perhaps more so than your regular shinobi, would have the same coping mechanisms as her. Twenty minutes into _Belladonna of Sadness_ , she realizes that is not the case.

“Why’d you pause it?” Anko asks, the screen featuring a scene with blood red bats flapping, representing the brutal sexual assault on the screen, rendered in bold colors and fine lines and a trippy, watercolor effect. Kakashi is looking at her, his one good eye bulging out of its socket.

“Why do you want to watch that?” he asks. Anko frowns.

“It’s art,” she says, “a film from the seventies nearly lost to time!”

“You want to watch a movie about rape?” Kakashi asks. Anko puffs her cheeks.

“It’s a beautiful movie, and let’s face it, sexual violence is in pretty much everything if you squint,” Anko reaches over and picks up one of his trash books. “Tell me, you little perv, how many times does the man actually ask the woman if she would like to be penetrated before he does it?” Kakashi blushes and snatches his book back.

“The woman is always enthusiastic,” he replies, self-conscious to be talking about sex with a girl, which is a weakness Anko easily sniffs out.

“Are you nervous?” Anko asks, “why?”

“Because…” Kakashi hums, “you’re a girl.” Anko laughs out loud.

“Well, shit, if you feel this way about a girl you don’t want to have sex with, I shudder to think of how you’ll shit the bed when you’re with a girl you really like,” she says. Kakashi frowns. He has never shit the bed over anything, and he definitely won’t if a girl is involved.

“Don’t change the subject,” he says, “why do you want to watch a movie where a woman is ripped apart?”

“Because it’s the female condition,” she says, “it’s just that bats don’t usually fly out of our guts after.” Kakashi sighs.

“I read romances to escape from reality. It’s like you want to live in the worst possible version of reality,” he replies.

“Why be happy when I can be horrified?” she says, grabbing the remote. “You know, I guess sexual violence is just sort of…fascinating, when you’re raised to always think about it. Like, it’s a way to understand the unimaginable, I suppose.” She trails off, thinking about how she would never have to explain this to Aoba. If he were here, he would remind Kakashi that reality is much, much worse than this movie, because the real thing is never so beautifully rendered. Then he’d turn to her and they would both cackle and make Kakashi uncomfortable. Anko turns to Kakashi. “So, are you going to be a baby, or can I press play?”

“I’m not a baby,” he frowns. She grins.

“Good,” she says, hitting play. They watch Jean stumble home, where her problems really begin.

**

Aoba has been in love and he loves his mom, but he has come to terms with the fact that the most profound relationship he will ever have with a woman is the one he has with Anko. She was there when he got the scar on his chin, and he would put bugs in her mouth while she taught him how to catch frogs. Her fingers and mouth have been all over him, and sometimes, it’s very hard not to feel their absence on a visceral level.

Tonight, he had sex with a random woman. Her name was immediately relegated to the ‘irrelevant’ folder in his brain, which is a douchebag move but it’s not the worst thing he’s done. He’s been craving intimacy, being touched. He misses waking up hungover, with Anko’s cold feet between his legs, how she’d let him rest his head on her lap, the casual way they’d bump into each other while doing drugs. He can even admit that he would let her use those creepy fucking snakes on him if it meant she would be close.

The sex had been fine. Aoba ate the woman out, and she came. Maybe she faked it, but he doesn’t think she did. _Anko would say that’s because I only look for what I want to see_. He frowns at himself, staring up at the motel ceiling. He pulled out and ejaculated onto the woman’s stomach, and when she ran a finger through his spunk and put it in her mouth, he felt indifference, and then despair over said indifference. He had got up and grabbed a towel and called the woman a cab. After he left, he sat on the edge of the bed and thought about checking out of the motel and climbing into the van and driving to the next city over.

Instead, he rolls over and goes to bed. With his arm stretched out, he thinks about the fact that Anko is the only person who loves him enough to put her own fingers down his throat when he needs to puke but is being a pussy about it. He doesn’t have to lie about anything to Anko, not about the job or his feelings or how their job makes him feel. He wonders if there is anyone to eat her bad dreams for her, something they came up with after she survived receiving the curse mark. He visited her at the hospital, and he will never forget how angry it made him to see her cover her neck in shame, like she did something wrong.

Her nightmares started then, some comical, others horrifying. Giant clowns, talking flowers, killer dolphins, nuclear holocausts, and more—there is nothing that she hasn’t dreamt. He doesn’t know why he said this, but one day she was telling him about a dream she had about acid rain, and he told her that he would eat all of her bad dreams. All she has to do is share them, and he’ll dispose of them. _Who is there to eat them now?_ He supposes that the answer is no one. He feels like a real fucking loser.

It’s 3 a.m. and sex failed to be an adequate supplement for his relationship with Anko, so all he can think about is her. He doesn’t have romantic or sexual feelings for her. Rather, he knows that the kind of intense relationship they have is usually associated with sex and romance, so that’s where he went to try and find relief. Aoba lies on his stomach, sticking his face into the pillow. He came out here to get away from Konoha and to get over the death of his uncle, but all he wants to do is go back. He just doesn’t feel like it’s time yet.

Anko calls their relationship _radical intimacy_. They tell each other about all of their perverted thoughts, embarrassing bodily functions and nightmares. Aoba has carried Anko home, and she has soothed him while he’s sick. He once woke up with her face pressed into his sweaty back, shrugged and went back to sleep. They have that kind of relationship.

When they were sixteen, they decided to have sex together. His parents were gone for a night, and she told hers that she would be with Kurenai, who agreed to cover for her. It hadn’t been particularly romantic, but it was sweet and there were moments where he felt like they were flying. It’s weird to think about how he’s the first person who was inside of her and she the first person to receive him. There was a moment when they were breathing on each other, with their foreheads and noses pressed together, when he felt completely at peace with the world. He told her that after, and she laughed at him. He got sore about it, so she sat bare on his stomach and kissed him with real feelings.

It’s weird to think about the fact that her nipple has been in his mouth or that she was the first girl to kiss him with big feelings. He groans, and tries to think of literally, anything else. He comes up blank.

**

Anko is sad. Really, really sad. She’s sitting in front of the toilet in her bathroom. Shizune is patting the back of her head, while Asuma sits on the edge of the bathtub, his feet in the tub, frowning. It’s September third; Aoba’s twentieth birthday. She woke up in a mood today, and it only got worse. She can’t remember the last time she and Aoba didn’t speak on his birthday; if they were out on missions, she always made sure he got a card, or she’d use a snake to send a message; he’d use a crow.

When she finally woke up at 1 p.m., she decided that today was the kind of day where it was appropriate to get stinking drunk. She went out and bought three bottles of wine, and ran into Asuma on the way home, who promised to come over later. She later called Shizune and asked her to come over too, declaring that Asuma and Shizune are like her and Aoba’s parents (Anko had, at that point, had three glasses of wine and a bowl of cereal).

By the time Asuma and Shizune showed up, Anko had a bottle of wine and was two glasses into the second. Her face was flushed, and she was in a good mood, wearing a t-shirt dress with no bra, her hair down. She walked around her apartment with her comforter wrapped around her, like a mantle, declaring today to be a wonderful day. Shizune quietly hid the third bottle of wine under the sink while Asuma persuaded Anko to eat a piece of bread.

But it was too little, too late. Anko puked on the floor, right on Asuma’s feet, and then started bawling, wrapping her comforter around her. Shizune quietly walked Anko into the bathroom. Asuma wiped off his feet and cleaned the floor, and then came in to wash his feet properly. Anko uses fancy bodywash that smells like figs, so the entire bathroom has a fruity smell.

Anko sniffles, sitting back on her heels. “Why do you think Aoba left?”

“I don’t know,” Shizune says softly, “I don’t think it’s really important right now.

“No, it is,” Anko wipes her face, “you two left too. You must know why he left Konoha.” Shizune sighs, while Asuma turns to look away.

“He needs to figure something out,” he finally says, “you should just trust him.”

“I never thought he’d leave, and not at least call me or leave a note,” she says, “all he does is send me bells. What am I supposed to do? They don’t tell me about where he is, what’s happening to him.” She pulls the comforter over her head and leans against the bathroom wall. “Have either of you heard from him?” Shizune shakes her head, but Asuma stiffens. Anko sees this, and her eyes narrow.

“Asuma?” she asks. He doesn’t turn around, pretending to not to hear her. “Asuma!”

“What?” he asks, turning around.

“Have you spoken to Aoba?” she asks. Shizune looks at Asuma too, and while he would comfortably lie to a drunk Anko, he can’t say the same of Shizune. She doesn’t believe in lying to protect people, when it’s between friends.

And, well, he wants Shizune to think that he’s a good person for reasons that are not completely selfless and, one could say, those aforementioned reasons are, quite possibly, sexual. But only a little bit.

“Yeah,” Asuma says, “I’ve heard from him.”

“Do you have a phone number?” Anko asks, a little hopeful. Asuma, knowing that if Aoba wanted her to contact him, he would have made sure that she could do it, lies.

“No,” he says, “he calls from payphones, mostly. He’s driving around, so there’s no fixed address.” Anko’s face falls, and she slumps against the wall.

“But he’s my soulmate,” she says, “why won’t he talk to me?”

“I don’t know,” Asuma says, standing up.

“Asuma,” Anko says, “will you be my soulmate instead?” He shakes his head.

“Absolutely not,” he replies. Anko’s face breaks apart, and Shizune sits beside her, wrapping an arm around her while Asuma dries his feet.

**

It’s 4:30 a.m. in Bismarck, North fucking Dakota. Don’t ask Aoba how he got here; he has been high for the last few days, only just coming down now. He is in an empty Walmart parking lot, his cellphone to his ear, waiting for Asuma to pick up. Japan is fifteen hours ahead, which means that Asuma, wherever the fuck he is, is most definitely awake and probably sober.

Aoba is sitting on the top of the van, while his travelling companions, as he euphemistically calls them, are in a motel. It’s the ninja in him; he always wants to be on the move. He doesn’t like having a place to stay when he isn’t at home. He looks up at the sky, waiting. It’s North Dakota, which is the kind of name that implies that there are mountains, or at least a few really big hills, somewhere around here.

He looks at his bare feet. It took months for all the hot pink nail polish to chip off, the last bit finally flaking off two months ago. He feels naked, without it. Aoba thinks about hanging up, when he finally hears the phone pick up.

“Hello?” Asuma says, as if he doesn’t know who this is.

“Howdy,” Aoba replies, lying back on the van. It’s chilly, but not cold, and he’s been up all night, so he feels impervious to the temperature.

“Who’s this?” Asuma deadpans. Aoba smiles to himself before replying.

“Just your favorite wannabe North American.” Aoba hasn’t decided whether he prefers Canada or America. He has never been to Mexico. “It’s my birthday, you know.”

“It was your birthday,” Asuma says, “today is September 4, the day after.”

“I’m surprised you even knew,” Aoba says, trying not to think of the dull, itchy ache in his side or the massive comedown he is in for. He rubs his head; he buzzed off all of his hair, so it makes a scratchy noise when he rubs his head. It’s made him uglier, but girls seem to like him more, funnily enough.

“I’m in Konoha,” Asuma says, “I was with Anko yesterday. She remembered.” Aoba presses his arm to his itchy side. He got a snake tattoo yesterday, one the size of Anko’s hand, on his rib cage, as if to replace the rib she had taken from him. Even high as a kite, Aoba knows how to pick a good tattoo artist. It curves several times, and it is done in fine, black lines with minimal shading. Its little forked tongue sticks out, and some of the scales are red. The tattoo hurt like a bitch, but now he has a souvenir for the big 2-0, the first birthday he has had without contact from Anko and his mom.

Right now, it burns a little. By Asuma’s tone, Aoba can tell that Anko did something stupid.

“How’d you celebrate my big day?”

“Anko dusted all those bells you’ve sent, went and drank two bottles of wine in under four hours, and hurled right on my feet, like a fucking cat.” Asuma has seen some gnarly shit, but the sight of red wine, stomach bile and the solitary piece of bread he managed to get her to eat will haunt him for the rest of his days.

“She’s considerate,” Aoba says, “she always pukes in one spot for easy clean up. She’s way better than anyone else. You, like an asshole, puke in flowerpots.”

“Why are you bringing that up?”

“Oh, just those who live in glass houses—”

“Aoba, I don’t care about the puke,” Asuma says, “I care about why she was puking. I know you’re sending her bells, but she’s really upset that you didn’t call.”

“Well, I was a little busy. I’ve been high for several days now, I got a tattoo, got into a barfight, and then got thrown into a holding cell,” Aoba says, “my fellow vagrants only bailed me out an hour and a half ago.”

“What the hell…” Aoba can hear Asuma rubbing his face on the other end of the line.

“Yes, yours truly spent part of his twentieth birthday in the clanger.” Aoba says this as if this all happened to him, like he isn’t an agent in any of what happens to him.

“I never even know where the fuck you are,” Asuma groans. Aoba looks at his fingernails, which are, surprisingly, quite clean.

“I’m in Bismarck, North Dakota. Fifteen hours behind you. Named for Otto von Bismarck, who was the former Chancellor of the German Empire, also known as Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg. Metropolitan population is one hundred twenty-four thousand, nine hundred forty-nine people. Located in Burleigh County. It is the second largest city in North Dakota, even though it is the capital. Would you like to know more?” Aoba asks. He grins when he hears Asuma make an irritated noise in his throat

“Look, can you just call Anko?” Asuma asks, “she’s fucking depressing without you. She keeps sleeping with older dudes no one likes, drinking, and rearranging those bells you send. She’s gained, like, ten pounds.”

“That’s fatphobic and slut shaming,” Aoba says, “I would never have expected that from you.”

“Stop being an asshole and call her,” Asuma says, tired of this conversation.

“Not once, during this conversation, have you said Happy Birthday.” Aoba doesn’t care, but he wants to ignore the discomfort of having hurt Anko so deeply. He knows he fucked up, and he doesn’t need to hear about it.

“Anko really, really wanted to say that to you yesterday, so I am withholding it in solidarity.” Asuma replies.

“Look, you should have just taken her out for food when she was halfway through bottle one. That’s what I would have done.”

“If you were here,” Asuma says, “she wouldn’t have been drinking like that.” Asuma has never seen Anko that bad. “She cried over you, on your birthday. She asked me if I would be her soulmate instead.”

“You’ll never treat her right,” Aoba says, “and there is no way you could sleep through her snoring or do drugs with her, not like me.” _I eat her bad dreams, so they don’t make her sick_.

“And what do you think you’re doing right now?” Asuma asks. Aoba frowns.

“She’s not the axis on which my world turns.” He says this like it is an excuse, like this makes it all okay.

Asuma doesn’t even say goodbye, he just hangs up. Aoba sighs, and gets off the roof of the van, deciding to try and sleep.

**

Something Aoba has casually noticed is how much effort his travelling companions put into not seeming like creeps, rather than just not being creeps. Like, they will all be at a bar, and one of his ‘friends’ will spot a cute girl and will then consult the rest of the team to figure out how to approach her. Tonight, it’s Flea, who has a big jaw and small eyes. Not ugly, not cute, but distinct looking. Striking would be the kindest euphemism.

Flea is eyeing a blonde who is playing pool with her friend in the corner. Aoba suspects that the two women probably want to be left alone.

“So, should I go talk to her?” Flea asks. Aron scratches his jaw, thinking.

“Looks like she just wants to hang out with her friend,” Aoba says, sipping a beer. Neither woman is looking around the bar, and they actually look like they are in deep conversation. Aron chuckles beside him.

“Aoba, what Flea is trying to say is that he’s going to talk to this girl, he just wants to know how to do it, so he doesn’t look like a creep,” Aron says, “right Flea?”

“In that case, you’re already fucked,” Aoba says, “she doesn’t want to talk. She and her friend want to be left alone.” Never, ever in his life, has Aoba had to spell things out for his friends. Part of it is because, from spending extended periods of time with Kurenai, Shizune and Anko, he knows when women want to be left alone. It’s also just too much effort, talking to a girl who would rather be talking to someone else. Being a creep is a lot of work. Flea makes a face at Aoba’s comment and gets up to get a shot of Jägermeister. Aron snorts and sips his beer, while Aoba shrugs it off. 

If he has to think about it, out of everyone he knows back home, Ebisu is probably a creep, Aoba supposes. Even then, Aoba thinks that Ebisu is cartoonish rather than threatening. Genma tells Ebisu that instead of pretending to be chivalrous and then spying on women, he could just talk to a girl. _It’s not hard to treat women like people_.

Especially when you grow up watching your female friends put men through walls.

**

Dodge City, Kansas, big enough to warrant a Walmart Supercenter and a regional airport. One of Aoba’s travelling companions is visiting his family here, and Aoba decided to get a room in a motel and hang out for a few days. It’s 6 a.m. and Aoba bought two Colt 45s and a cheeseburger, bringing them back to his motel room. He doesn’t know how he hasn’t gained weight, but he supposes it’s because he has been forgetting to eat. It’s October 24, which means Anko is twenty, same as him. He sits on the floor of his motel room, entering Anko’s phone number and tucking the phone between his ear and shoulder as he unscrews a bottle of malt liquor. It tastes terrible, but it’s the kind of trash beverage Anko would appreciate. Asuma would probably drink it, too—he’s just better at hiding how much of a trash person he is.

Aoba takes a swig as the phone picks up. “Hello?” Anko’s voice makes him unclench, like he can finally relax.

“Hey,” he says, “it’s your big day.”

On the other end of the line, Anko’s mouth hangs open. Kurenai and Genma are in the corner, being monsters to each other while saying meaner things about everyone else behind their hands. Guy and Asuma are trying to put up a banner as per Shizune’s instructions, but they keep hanging it unevenly. Hayate brought Yuugao and Kakashi brought Tenzou, who have gravitated towards each other as Ibiki and Hayate help Raidou hang streamers. Shizune asked Kakashi to help decorate, but he pointed out that Asuma and Guy care way more than he does and well, this is why it has taken over twenty minutes to hang a banner.

Anko hasn’t heard his voice in months. She thought that she would never hear it again, and that one day, he would stop sending bells and he would be lost to her forever. Hearing him on the phone is kind of like a slap in the face, especially considering her performance on his birthday. She woke up to Asuma poking her awake, telling her she had to shower so they could go eat. He dragged her to Genma’s parents house, where his mom made them pancakes and asked them if they had plans for the rest of the day. Due to the hangover and the accompanying anxiety spiral and shame and embarrassment and Aoba withdrawal, Anko burst into tears with big ugly sobs right at the table. Genma’s mom gave her a mom hug, which made her cry harder, and Genma patted her hand while Asuma tried to put a pancake in her mouth, in a poor imitation of Aoba. Genma’s dad gave her his bacon, too. It had been embarrassing, at the time, but she did feel better.

So, while Anko is grateful to hear his voice, she also kind of wants to kill him dead. Wrap her hands around his neck and choke him dead (but not really—she loves him too much to ever hurt him. At most, she would put her hand on his throat and rub his Adam’s apple with her thumb).

“It’s a day, yes,” she says. She hears Aoba snort.

“You love your birthday,” he says, “remember that time you put your big toe in my mouth?” She was turning ten, and dared Aoba to lick her big toe to show his loyalty. He put it in his mouth and sucked, making her squeal, which made him double over in laughter.

“You sucked my toe,” she replies. Her voice is cold.

“I think it’s a fun memory.”

“Aoba,” she says, “what am I to you?” No one but Asuma appears to hear her. He looks over his shoulder, fucking up the alignment of the sign and getting chastised by Shizune. Anko wants to demand some emotional responsibility from Aoba, something that he usually ponies up to gladly. No one has been eating her bad dreams, and they’ve been piling up and up.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A self-evident one.” Anko says this softly. Aoba takes a swig of malt liquor. His burger is still there, uneaten. Suddenly, he has no appetite.

“Well, you’re the only girl whose used panties I’d put in my mouth,” he says. Anko narrows her eyes.

“What if we were dating?”

“Well, I imagine you’d want that kind of loyalty and devotion,” Aoba says, “I’d never think of another woman’s underwear again.” He picks up a fry and pops it into his mouth. His chewing noises are still the same, something she finds oddly reassuring.

“And if we were siblings?”

“Well, I guess it be fucked up for me to joke about putting your used panties in my mouth.” Aoba says. Anko groans.

“You’re disgusting,” she says.

“You don’t like the idea of me sticking your panties into my mouth?” he asks, no clue why he is insisting on this particular joke.

“I’m not disgusted by the joke, I’m disgusted by your callous behavior towards me and our friendship,” Anko says, her voice rising. Everyone turns to look at her, before going back to what they were doing.

“Callous,” he hums, “I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use.”

“Can you be serious, for just this once?” she huffs. “You’re avoiding my feelings.” Not once, in their fifteen plus years of friendship, has Anko ever asked him to be serious.

“Why would I be avoiding your feelings?” he asks, voice dry. Anko frowns, before raising her voice—it feels like he won’t hear her if she isn’t loud and clear.

“Well, let’s see, you leave me, out of nowhere, no note or anything. You don’t leave me with an address or phone number to contact you. You have been sending me bells, like they are a substitute for you. Now, you’re calling me and acting like you haven’t been missing for months.”

“I’m calling you now…” he trails off. He can hear the steam coming out of her ears.

“I wanted to call you on _your_ birthday,” she says, her voice rising. By now, everyone knows who she is talking to.

“Well, shit happened,” he says, “I was high, and I was arrested.”

“Stop making excuses!” Anko feels her face twist, “I would never do the same to you!”

“Anko, I really don’t know why you’re freaking out,” he says, trying to de-escalate. This is, of course, the wrong thing to say.

“Are you kidding me?” she yells, “you’re my soulmate! I would never, ever, ever hurt you like this and act like a clueless asshole to get out of listening to you tell me how I hurt your feelings!”

“And this is how you talk to your soulmate?” Aoba asks, taking another swig of malt liquor.

“Fuck you, asshole,” she yells into the phone, “it’s my birthday!” She hurls her phone straight ahead, and if he hadn’t been watching the entire exchange, Asuma would not have gotten out of the way in time. The phone goes through the drywall, and Anko screams into her hands.

Asuma approaches her cautiously, considering he has somehow been present for every meltdown. Shizune goes to the wall and takes the phone out. It is somehow intact, and Anko yells, “don’t call him back!” Shizune walks into the kitchen with the phone, and Asuma grabs Anko before she can actually grab her phone and destroy it. “He left me; he has no right to call me ever again!” She squirms but Asuma is bigger than her, and he drags her into her bedroom.

“If I let you go, you’re not going to go and destroy everything, right?” Asuma asks, kicking the door shut behind him.

“I make no promises,” she hisses. Asuma groans.

“Anko…” he looks up at the ceiling, wondering how this became his life. “Everyone is here to celebrate your day. Don’t let Aoba ruin it.”

“He ruined it by not being here,” she sniffs, “I hate him.” Anko wilts, and while he can tell that she won’t go and destroy her apartment, Asuma can tell that she needs someone to hold her up.

“I don’t think you hate him.” Asuma holds her a little tighter, and Anko screws her eyes shut.

“Can you get everyone to leave?” she asks in a small voice. “I don’t want them here.”

“What do you want to do instead?” Asuma asks, letting her go. Anko wraps her arms around herself, not looking at him.

“I want to have a nap.” She tilts her head. “Maybe, we can all meet up at a bar later.” Asuma nods.

“I’ll kick everyone out.”

“You can stay on the couch,” she says. Asuma smiles.

“I could use a nap too,” he says softly, leaving and closing the door behind him.

**

Aoba is sitting on Venice Beach, staring at the ocean. All the houses are popsicle colors, and someone is smoking pot. He’s staying with his mom’s friend, who told him that he needed to take a shower and then hang out on the beach for a few hours. So, here Aoba is, clean and bored, staring at the cover of _The 120 Days of Sodom_ , thinking about how this entire trip feels like a waste of his time. He sent a lot of bells and dirty postcards, spent a night in jail, had several one-night stands, got a tattoo, saw forty-eight states and six provinces, but he feels even dumber than before.

About a year ago, before his uncle died, Kakashi declared, while, admittedly, pretty fucking high, _I’m a waste of a sperm and an egg_. Everyone had laughed, because really, who, in these troubled times, hasn’t felt that way at least once? Aoba told Anko that he, personally, felt like his conception was more of an accident, since he didn’t like the negative connotation of ‘mistake.’ Anko had been silent for a bit, before saying that she would otherwise agree with him, that every person is a kind of accident, but they both exist at the same time in the same place. _Us knowing each other is no accident or mistake, Aoba_. The sandwich he had been eating fell out of his mouth, because he could feel, right in his brain and his heart, how right she was.

He’s lost weight, living on gas station and diner and vending machine food for a year. He didn’t make any money, but he didn’t lose any on his trip. Anko’s bells and the postcards he sent to Asuma, Genma and his parents are where the money that didn’t go towards drugs or living went. He sits on the beach, thinking of his last conversation with Anko, and how Kurenai told him not to call back for a while. _But I want to talk to her now._ Aoba takes out his phone and calls the next best person.

When Genma picks up, Aoba doesn’t even greet him. “Genma, pretend to be Anko and say something twisted and fucked up so I can feel something.”

“Nope,” Genma says, not missing a beat. Aoba frowns at the water.

“Is it out of solidarity, like Asuma?” he asks.

“Well, I meant it more like I lack her imagination, but yeah, solidarity or whatever,” Genma’s voice is lazy, like he just woke up. “I should probably tell you that she’s annoying everyone.”

“How? She is the least obnoxious person, of all of us,” Aoba says. This is something he sincerely believes.

“You’re her mom, you are obligated to love her,” Genma replies. He swears, it’s like Aoba carried Anko in the womb.

“She can’t have done anything that bad,” Aoba replies, “I bet she didn’t spend a night in jail.”

“Yeah, but that’s because Asuma has pull with the cops, being the son of the Third and all,” Genma replies. He, Shizune, and Asuma all watched Anko flash the cops, not really believing that it was actually happening at the time.

“You need to learn to feed her,” Aoba says, “that’s the rule with Anko. No drugs or booze without keeping her fed.”

“She eats all the time, and drinks like a fish,” Genma sighs, “Aoba, she misses you.”

“Apparently she is the only one who does,” he says.

“No,” Genma replies, “we all miss you.”

“Then why is Anko the only one freaking out?”

“Because you are like a limb, to her,” Genma replies, “you should’ve said goodbye, or called, or wrote a letter instead of sending her bells. They are all over her apartment. It’s like she is trying to channel you.” Aoba supposes he should feel creeped out or annoyed or inconvenienced by Anko’s devotion, but he feels the same way. He keeps looking for Anko in other people, but it’s impossible; there is only one Anko, and he’s lucky enough to exist with her at the same time. _I’ve got to go home_.

“I miss her the most,” Aoba says quietly.

“I know,” Genma says, “if you didn’t, you would have called her, wouldn’t you?”

Aoba says nothing, he just loses it. His uncle is dead, he has spent a year on another continent, and he is none the better for it, and he exists at the same time as Anko, but isn’t in the same place. Genma stays on the phone, listening to Aoba cry, having nothing to say but knowing what that gnawing, lonely feeling is like.

**

Anko is not a miserable traumatized person. A traumatized person? Yes. Miserable? No. It’s not even a conscious decision. She just doesn’t have time to be sad about things she can’t change. So, she hasn’t recognized herself over the last year. She hasn’t slowed down, and she’s still fit, but her thighs are bigger, and her stomach is softer. She doesn’t laugh as much, either. Anko is no fun anymore, and while her friends still stick by her, she can tell that they are dancing around her obvious misery.

Aoba succeeded in the impossible—he has made Anko into a miserable person. Asuma and Genma tease her, but she’ll frown and shrug. Shizune and Kurenai watch movies with her, but they always want to talk about her feelings, and there is nothing to talk about. Aoba’s absence is a trauma that is worse than what Orochimaru did to her, because Aoba is the one who made her brave after her former teacher tore her apart. _I’ll eat your bad dreams_. Kid Aoba had crooked teeth and big ears, and she wonders if he’s just as disappointed in Aoba as she is.

The phone rings, and Anko lies on her bed, looking up at the ceiling. It’s probably Asuma. He calls her all the time now, which is funny, because he is usually very content to make things other people’s problems. She’d joke that he was doing it to prove to Kurenai that he’s an adult, but he hasn’t looked at Kurenai since she and Raidou became official, and the only person whose opinion matters to him is his father’s, and there is no way in the hell that the Third knows or cares about the big hole Aoba left inside of her.

The phone starts ringing again, and she continues to stare at the ceiling. Technically, she could call Aoba, but she has too much pride. His absence traumatized her, and she isn’t going to risk being hurt again. What if he doesn’t pick up? He obviously didn’t want to talk to her if he never called her. Anko closes her eyes, and lets the numbness wash over her. _Do you know I miss you Aoba? Do you miss me?_

**

Anko breathes in, trying to squeeze her stomach tight, but no matter what she does, her skirt refuses to zip up. She’s not fat, but she is definitely chubbier. An extra fifteen pounds will do that. She frowns, pulling her skirt down over her hips, and kicking it to the corner of her room. She does to her dresser and pulls out a black t-shirt dress. It doesn’t hide her weight gain, but it doesn’t make her look worse, and it fits loose. She pulls it over her head and shakes her hair out, smiling at herself in the mirror. No matter what she does, she always looks very sad. Anko blinks, not recognizing herself.

Asuma said he’d take her out on a walk, just the two of them, but he’s not the person she wants to spend time with. She said that to him too, and that she was too ugly to be seen. Asuma told her that he hasn’t got a lot of time on this planet, and she should be grateful that he wants to spend it with her. He then told her he was going to come get her at 4 p.m. It’s 3:15 now, and she has both brushed her teeth _and_ gotten dressed. She wonders what she’ll do, when she hears a knock at her window. _If it’s Asuma, I am going to shove him out the window_. Sometimes he comes early, such is his worry for her.

Anko spins around and looks at her window, face set in a scowl, when she realizes Aoba is staring back at her. His hair is cropped close to his head, and his face is leaner, but it is definitely him. Anko rushes to the window, and pushes it up, before sticking her head out. He kneels on a tree branch outside of her window, a rucksack over his shoulder, his sunglasses on his head instead of over his eyes, like he wants to see her.

She leans as close as she can to him, but he is still a foot away. She’s definitely softer, but she still has an edge to her. It’s in the line of her jaw and her angry eyes. Aoba thinks she might kill him, which is what he deserves. Her hair hangs around her head, in a shaggy lob. He can tell that it’s air-dried, because of its slight wave. He wants to take her face in his hands and press his lips to her forehead and tell her he’s sorry.

“Why shouldn’t I push you off of that branch?” she asks, hanging out her window.

“Because you need me like I need you,” he says, “it’s terminal.” He’s gonna hallucinate her voice right before he dies. Of this, he is certain.

“You got an ugly haircut, and you’ve lost weight,” she says.

“You got fat.” He grins at the way her cheeks puff up. “Lucky for you, I still want to eat your bad dreams. I haven’t even seen my mom yet, and she bought the plane ticket.”

“What are you trying to say, Aoba?” she asks, eyes narrow.

“Anko, you’re looking at me like I have an ulterior motive,” he says, “can’t a guy come see his best friend in the whole world without it meaning anything dark and twisty?”

“You left me for a year. No note. No phone call. Nothing,” she says.

“I called you once, on your birthday,” he replies.

“That doesn’t count,” she says, “I put a hole in my wall.” Aoba snorts, even while she glares at him.

“I sent you bells,” he replies. “Lots of them.”

“You sent eighty.” She has counted every single one, and they are all over her apartment. If houses with lots of pennies indicate a haunting, Anko would say that she was trying to channel Aoba’s chaotic spirit by having the bells everywhere. There is no order, they are just all over the place.

“Eighty?” he says, eyebrows raised. “Wow, I deserve to be shot.”

“I’ll do it,” she says, “I’m first in line.”

“Let me in, and I promise, you can shoot me wherever and however you’d like,” he says.

“I wouldn’t feel that way if I had true love,” she says. She doesn’t resent him, but she knows it would be easier to be in love. People would empathize with her more readily, for missing him like she has. No one would ever treat Kurenai like she’s crazy for adoring Raidou like she does, or for missing him when he’s gone.

“What’s true love when you’ve got a soulmate, Anko?” he asks. She has no response for that one, so she steps back into her room, and he climbs into her window.

**

Most people’s relationship problems come from the fact that they forget that they are two different people; Anko and Aoba are different because they forgot that they are the same person, assuming that there are more differences than there are. Aoba is nervous about having this conversation, because he wants to throw himself at Anko’s feet and press his face into her lap and ask for her forgiveness. All the cheesy, melodramatic shit that he would otherwise find pathetic, if he weren’t preparing himself to win Anko back. He sits at her kitchen table, tapping the top with his pointer finger.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

Anko sits at the table, putting a glass of water in front of him. She sits down beside him, and they turn their bodies to face each other. Anko puts her foot on his thigh, and Aoba puts his hands around her ankle. They say nothing to each other, Anko tilting her head, rubbing the ball of her foot into his thigh. She reaches forward and takes his sunglasses off, putting them on her own face.

“You’re an asshole,” she says, his eyes blinking. Anko thinks Aoba’s eyes are the prettiest part of him, and that it’s a shame that he covers them up all the time.

“You still let me in,” he replies. Something he has learned from Anko: emotional intimacy can be as conscious expanding as certain drugs. “Why are you wearing my sunglasses?”

“Because I want to see things from your twisted perspective.” Aoba frowns, squeezing her ankle.

“I am sorry,” he says.

“Why?” she asks. Aoba presses his forehead to her raised knee, thinking over his answer.

“I don’t want to watch our friends die,” he says quietly. The day is going to come, he just knows it. He didn’t see Rin or Obito die, but he knows he will, eventually, see one of his friends die. It’s just the way the world works around here.

“So, you left without saying anything?” she asks in a soft voice. Aoba nods.

“I was scared,” he says in a quiet voice. Anko places her hand on the crown of his head. “I’m still scared.” Very scared. Frightened. Terrified on an existential level.

“I know,” Anko says softly, “I get scared too.” Nonetheless, it was infinitely scarier being without Aoba. He leans forward, stretching to rest his chin on her knee. She takes his sunglasses off and sets them on the table. “Aoba, I would have eaten your fear.”

“But you have bad dreams,” he says quietly.

“And you eat them, even though they might make you sick,” she says, “tell me everything, instead of running away from me.” _I can’t bear to be without you_.

Aoba looks into Anko’s eyes, and as always, there is absolutely no weakness. She always tells him that he has the most expressive eyes, but he thinks that’s Yuugao, whose feelings seem to leak out of her eyes, and he supposes that Kurenai has the most striking, and Genma has the prettiest, and Shizune and Asuma both have the kind eyes that parents are supposed to have. But Anko’s eyes are always strong, defiant. She never gives up or despairs or cries over stupid things (if asked, she would say that, considering all the tears she spent on him, she clearly cries over incredibly stupid things). She takes his hand and puts it on her forehead.

“Read my mind,” she says. He frowns.

“It’s better if you say it,” he replies. “I like it better when you tell me things.”

“Just do it,” she says softly, “do it for me.” Aoba sighs, and closes his eyes, pressing his palm to her forehead. She puts her two hands over his, pressing his hand into her skull.

Anko’s mind presents him with a memory. It’s seafoam green cotton, white tile, yellow sunlight. A hideous flower arrangement on a bedside table. He sees himself, through her eyes. Her neck, his neck, is throbbing, and he realizes this is when he visited her in the hospital after she received the curse mark. His stomach feels empty, but he’s not hungry. Like he wants to be swallowed whole. What he recognizes as her hand is pressed to the mark, trying to hide it. She feels ashamed, angry and violated. Anko nearly died, and she feels like she is the bad person. _Anko_ , he thinks.

He’s sitting on the end of her bed, his hands behind his back, smiling at her.

“Anko, you have the best set up in here!” Kid Aoba says. He feels his chest, her heart, lock up.

“I had a bad dream last night,” she says quietly. It’s weird, feeling her voice come out of his mouth.

“What happened?” Kid Aoba asks, scooting closer. Behind her eyelids, a visual of acid rain coming down and making the flesh melt off of her mother’s face pops up. Her mother’s eyes run right out of her head, and her hair falls out in clumps.

“Acid rain,” she replies quietly. “I have lots of bad dreams.” He remembers, from his own memories, that she had dark circles under her eyes and was always tired.

“What’s a lot mean?” Kid Aoba asks.

“Too many,” she says, “so many my brain might explode.”

“Explode, huh?” Kid Aoba hums. “You should give them to me.”

“What?”

“Tell me your bad dreams,” he says, “I’ll eat them all.” Aoba feels something tender unfurl in his chest, and he realizes that she is trying to show him how he makes her feel.

“Really?” she asks, moving over and patting the spot on the bed beside her. Aoba smiles, his teeth crooked. He moves to sit beside her, and they lie back on the bed, staring up at the bat poster someone put up there.

“I’ll eat ‘em all,” he says, and he smiles at her when she moves the hand that had been pressed to her neck to hold his own. Kid Aoba is so happy, free from fear.

 _Brave_ , is the word that bubbles up in his mind. Like Anko is whispering it into his mouth. _Remember when you were brave for both of us?_ She doesn’t say it in her mind, but the question is there. _I’ll be brave for both of us, if you let me._ He looks into the face of Kid Aoba, who is smiling at Kid Anko in Anko’s mind’s eye, and he realizes all she wants is for him to talk to her, instead of running away.

Toads placed in hands. Spiders on forearms. Worms in mouths. Little kid stuff. Crows coming out of thin air. Snakes for arms. Pills on tongues. Big kid stuff. A foot on a thigh. A chin on a knee. Three hands to a forehead. Adulthood, admitting that bad dreams aren’t scary at all, compared to death or being left behind. Tell me, tell me.

Instead of speaking, Aoba shows Anko the time that she told him that there is nothing accidental to them knowing each other. That their friendship was fated, right from the beginning of the universe. That he loves her in a deep way that should scare him but does the opposite. It makes him brave. Life is fucked up and their labor is alienated, and they are exploited, and people die, but that doesn’t mean that he has to be afraid, and if ever he feels fear bloom in his chest, all he has to remember is the time Kid Anko looked at him and felt something too expansive to just be hope or love—bravery, he made her feel brave, after she thought she’d never be able to get out of bed again. 

Whole, he is whole again. Soulmates are real, and true love is nothing when you find the person who makes you brave.

**Author's Note:**

> Reading about capitalism is making me crazy. Aoba and Anko live in my head rent free, and this just came out of my brain, fully formed. I hope you like it. Feel free to leave a comment-I love them and reply to every one. Stay safe out there!
> 
> Heads up: "The 120 Days of Sodom" and "Belladonna of Sadness" are both v. graphic and the former is, well, to put it lightly, disgusting (although I have never read it). Belladonna is a beautiful movie but it's graphic, so Google at your own risk.


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